• "Yeezus is a medley of several genres—new wave, punk, rock and of course hip-hop," notes Billboard magazine. "Those looking for vintage soul sounds or even full-on raps from start to finish will be thrown several curves here. It's an album with numerous emotional layers as well. There are a few lighthearted moments, and cuts about love along with lust. But mostly, West is just plain mad—angry at naysayers, 'The Man' censoring his art, and even at his own celeb status."

• "Yeezus is the darkest, most extreme music Kanye has ever cooked up, an extravagantly abrasive album full of grinding electro, pummeling minimalist hip-hop, drone-y wooz and industrial gear-grind," states Rolling Stone's Jon Dolan.

Def Jam

• "The record, which overtly addresses issues of race in three song titles—"New Slaves," "Black Skinhead" and "Blood on the Leaves"—is the hardest, most abrasive record, both musically and thematically, of [West's] career," writes Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times.

• "It's a tighter album than most hip-hop work, clocking in at just 40 minutes," notes Jim Farber of the New York Daily News. "The terse length keeps its minimalist style from becoming dull. It's just long enough to satisfy, but still short enough to make you want to play it over again right after you finish. The lyrics won't win any prizes for hip-hop complexity. Compared with wordsmiths like Jay-Z, they seem rudimentary. But that's by design."

• West has "turned out his loudest, angriest and most subversive album yet," states Idolator's Carl Williott. "It's a 10-track blast of dystopian bangers."

• "Yeezus adds up to be Kanye's most lyrically focused album yet," writes Troy Cle of AllHipHop.com. "[It] is exactly what he wanted it to be—something that no matter if you like it or not it cannot and will not be ignored."

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